Yep, many places sure had a cold winter this year. In case you’re wondering what it means, the answer is not much.
Local, short term changes in the outside environment are called weather. Humans don’t have much influence on weather because our kind of influence builds up slowly and usually averages out across the entire planet. One exception is when we dry out local weather by cutting down forests, but let’s set that aside for now. Climate is the larger-scale, longer term trend. Climate influences a given day’s weather to some degree but much more directly controls, for example, what kind of plants and animals can live in your area, growth/shrinkage of marginal zone glaciers, sea level and so on.
Me: That seems like an easy enough point. I really don’t understand why I have to explain it every time an online wingnut has to shovel his driveway.
H.L. Mencken’s ghost: Never argue with a man whose job depends on not being convinced.
Me. Yeah, fine, but the point has been beaten into the ground. Surely most people would have picked up the distinction up by now.
H.L. Mencken’s ghost: Kid, you’re sharp as a two by four. < floats off to haunt Nedra Pickler*>
The world has seen some extraordinary winter conditions in both hemispheres over the past year: snow in Johannesburg last June and in Baghdad in January, Arctic sea ice returning with a vengeance after a record retreat last summer, paralyzing blizzards in China, and a sharp drop in the globe’s average temperature.
It is no wonder that some scientists, opinion writers, political operatives and other people who challenge warnings about dangerous human-caused global warming have jumped on this as a teachable moment.
Damn you, Mencken.
Look, this doesn’t have to be difficult. If you don’t want to believe loony fringe partisans like George H.W. Bush’s IPCC, check it out for yourself. Most people with a backyard and a reference library can hunt down local phenomena that respond to climate rather than weather. If there is a nearby stream fed by alpine glaciers or snowpack, it will run higher in spring and lower in late summer if snow melts sooner in the year and more precipitation falls as rain. Learn which day of the year local flowering plants bloom and when pollinating insects start to appear. Find out what plants and animals have territories that end just to the south of you or at a slightly lower elevation. Put out a birdfeeder and note when migratory species start appearing. Are there any marginal zone glaciers in your area?** Permafrost? Ask an old fart whether they’ve changed. There is a reason why gardening enthusiasts and climate denialists have non-overlapping Venn circles.
I expect that this will once an for all stop denialists from crying OMFG warming is a h0ax! every time snow gets in the way of a cheetos run. Then again I am a bit slow.
(*) One of many good reasons to pick on Pickler.
(**) Antarcticans can sit this one out; the East Antarctic Ice Sheet will thaw approximately never.